DISCLAIMER:
This post was supposed to be published on the final day of IPL 3. But as a perfect S/W professional, the deadline got missed due to some poor planning.. So please spare me for posting this so late. I know all of you are so engrossed with the news on the T20 debacle, the pub brawl, Kirsten's comments on the fitness , but lets take sometime to look at IPL 4, the "most successful IPL" (term already coined by IPL Governing Council)
Lalit Modi may not be the official commissioner for the next IPL, but he has already jot down some new rules for next year's IPL to make it more interesting and more nail-biting. And here are those. (Note: A little bit of this already made rounds in Cricinfo :(, but believe me I m not plagiarizing, I had these things on my mind but couldnt post it before)
1. From next year, there will be no one-sided matches. All of 94 matches will, as Ravi Shastri would say, "Will go down the wire" (*Whistle**Whistle*). This is done keeping in mind the interest of the public watching the match at the stadium and those watching it on SET MAX. The maximum run difference with which a the side batting first can beat the side chasing is within 10 runs and all matches will be played atleast played till the 19th over. Similarly the maximum wicket difference for a win would be utmost 3. So even if a side (with all of 10 wickets in hand) need 6 runs from 1 over to win, they would end up as losers as they should have lost atleast 7 wickets. Speaking on this Lalit Modi said "We have always heard people talking about keeping wickets in hand to win a match, but now with this new rule the sides should have a strategy to lose a wicket at the right time. This would make a more mental competition between sides apart from Cricket".
2. Considering the kind of entertainment that Sreesanth provides on the field, Lalit Modi has added a clause especially for Sreesanth. A new rule applicable only for Sreesanth. According to this rule, Sreesanth will be "The Player for all Teams" . More on this rule, Lalit Modi said," Sreesanth is a unique character. its fun to have him on the field and we have discussed with SET MAX and they report that the TRP ratings go off the roof when he plays for Kings XI Punjab. So we ll have him as permanent member in all IPL Matches". Asked about what will happen if both the teams playing on a particular day prefer not to have Sreesanth in the side, Mr Modi said, "There will be an auction for not having him in the side. Whichever team bids higher, they will be declared winner and Sreesanth will have to play for the other team". On hearing this none of the teams felt happy apart from the MI.
3. With a completely new auction for all players in the next years IPL, Modi was excited and said, "this is going to be the most profitable revenue generating auction for the IPL. No other sport, NBA, EPL, nothing comes close to our auction". He also added that, "the maximum cap for a single player will be $7m and anything over it will go to IPL(which invariably means it goes to Lalit Modi's personal account)
4. "A Greener IPL 4" :Next year the IPL is gonna be greener than this year. We will be having 2 stupid green tips instead of one(which no one is gonna understand) and at the end of the match there will be twice the amount of firecrackers to celebrate the win and pollute the environment. When asked whether the firecrackers are contradicting the Green IPL theme, Lalit said, "in IPL 3 we did the same. we got tremendous response on the use of firecrackers from some eminent personalities like Shilpa Shetty. So we are gonna continue this year as well. Its our interest to keep our franchises happy as well as give some Green tips for others to follow".
5. IPL 4 on Twitter!! : If it was YouTube this year, the next year it is going to be Twitter. You have to follow Lalit Modi to keep updated with the scores. He said, "I will be posting the updates on the scores for every 5 overs. The Live telecast from the stadium will be delayed by 5 mins. So you can keep updated with the latest score by following me. "
6. After the amount of media attention that Lalit Modi got post the Sashi Tharoor controversy, Mr Modi has decided to rope in one politician to play the role of a spoiler like Mr Tharoor to keep the events off-the-field also very interesting in the next IPL. "With Mr Tharoor,we never really rehearsed to have such events. It just happened. It was wonderful to keep some news about IPL to be telecasted on the News channels. So we are planning to rope in Lalu Prasad Yadav for next year's IPL to be our "Controversy Politician". He is funny and a great critic. So you guys will be enjoying a lot more next year on the off-the-field events. My team has prepared some great controversial stuffs over which me and Mr Yadav would be fighting on the last few weeks of IPL 4. I assure you that" said Mr. Modi
7. Next years commentary team to talk sensible. As people criticized the commentary team's poor vocabulary this year, the IPL has decided to give coaching to the commentators. Modi said "This is one area which we would definitely like to improve. We have a very strong commentary team, but its unfortunate to hear such comments about them. So we are planning to have the coaching done by Ramiz Raja to our commentary team who would give expert advice on the use of English language and the cricket jargons. I listened to one of the best ever lines by Ramiz during the ongoing t20 wc which made him the inimitable commentator to seek advice from. And this was the line which made me a fan of him.'Everything on the on side, nothing on the leg side... and all the runs have been on the on side'. Also, since we know the results of each and every ball of the match, we would have Ramiz to write down and the commentary team will just have to read it out during the Live telecast. " But Sivaramakrishnan has strongly opposed this by saying he has done dumber commentary than Ramiz but amazed by why Lalit preferred Ramiz. (Probably they had an auction for that too!!! )
This is all what Lalit Modi had to say when asked about IPL 4, but since he was busy preparing the 9000 page defence document to BCCI, he signed off from us in typical Rajni style saying "this is just a trailer. Await more news"
Watch this space for more guys !!
